


Los Restos Del Naufragio

by stpitbull



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-29
Updated: 2012-03-29
Packaged: 2017-11-02 17:13:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/371407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stpitbull/pseuds/stpitbull
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>WARNING: Heaps of Spanish. More specifically, a weird pidgin post-apocalyptic Spanish that I spent way, way too long developing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

If there's anything at all decent to say about powder gangers, it's that they can let go of a grudge as long as there's enough booze. It was like a trade-off -- Syd slaughters the gang in Goodsprings, then uses his connections to get the ones in 19 into the Khans, then shows up in one of the remainders' sad little absconded halfbreed shanty towns with a stack of girlie mags and about a dozen cartons of cigs and suddenly the men viewed him as far less explodable. It was the kind of thing that made Raul shake his head when he thought about it, how consequences didn't exist for Syd. He could charm his way out of or into anything, and that went double for good graces.   
  
The stale air of the bar is steadily filling with staler smoke, beams of yellow light catching dust from where they spilled in through splits in the ancient walls, through window panes caked with centuries of dust. The bar serves its own brew, poured from misshapen bottles of thick glass, label free and with rudely carved stoppers, the one Syd and Raul are splitting sitting on the bar so that the dim lamp light can illuminate the swirling sediment at the bottom, rising through the yellow liquid like smoky tendrils, curling around the gnarled little excuse of an agave worm.   
  
"Salud," Syd says to Raul as he lifts his glass, and Raul can't tell if he's joking anymore.   
  
They both knock back shots and Raul can feel his face twisting in a grimace. "You sure they ain't still tryin' to kill you, boss?"   
  
Syd holds a fist to his chest and fights his own pained expression to give Raul a little grin. "Nunca les permitas verte sudar," he says. And Raul chuckles.   
  
They drink the catpiss drink that the rest of the gangers in the bar do, the sun setting outside and the smells of burning food on crude campfires mingling inside through the frequently swinging door. Raul knows this is Syd's way of making a point, sitting on the stool in the dead center of the bar instead of claiming a little booth in the back, making certain that everyone who enters the bar can see him, sitting there, unchallenged and responsible for the cigarettes they were now smoking. Syd is always making point, none of this is new. But the tension is still thick, Raul can feel it, and it does a decent job of putting a damper on their usual companionable conversation.   
  
And Syd's expecting something. He always is, and he's always looking like he's not, but he's got tells. Little things that Raul's learned to look out for. His smile is easy and his eyes are even, shoulders in a relaxed slope as he leans on his elbows against the bar, but he's got two calloused fingertips on his bracelet, lightly twisting at the thin leather straps puckered in his pinch. It's how he deals with an itchy trigger finger, Raul figured out a while back. Puts the itch in his own, watching it.

Syd finishes off the bottle and tosses some caps onto the bar for a second. "Don't know why you're wastin' money on this, boss," Raul says. "We've got some empty bottles, we can just fill them straight from the toilet."   
  
Syd chuckles. "Like there're any toilets here left unviolated by dynamite."   
  
Raul grins at him, the sounds of some scuffle from a few doors down permeating the walls of the bar and mixing with the clink of glasses and flick of lighters. "You plannin' on finishing a whole 'nother bottle?" he asks as Syd downs a fresh shot. Fresh might not be the right word.   
  
"Ain't you gonna join me?"   
  
"You don't pay me enough," Raul says, shoving his glass away. "I can take a lot of abuse, but I can't take much more of this."   
  
"Aw, c'mon," Syd says. "Mescal's good for you. Puts hair on your chest. Last I checked, you were fresh out."   
  
"I can think of less painful ways to prove my masculinity, boss. Wrestling a yao guai comes to mind."   
  
Syd's chuckle is a little wet around the edges, but still a warm sound that settles right in Raul's chest, a little center of comfort around the core of tension he's built up watching Syd fiddle with his bracelet. "You been complainin' about your knees all day. You gonna tell the yao guai you're dealin' with a lower back thing and hope he takes mercy on you?"   
  
"Works on you," Raul says with a shrug.   
  
"I ain't a yao guai, last I checked."   
  
"True, you're a damn sight scarier."   
  
Syd's stopped toying at his bracelet, makes a two-fingered gun with his hand and 'fires' at Raul with a wink and a  _tch_ . "Lot more fun to wrestle, too."   
  
Raul snorts as Syd takes another shot. "Fresco," he mutters to himself, and Syd doesn't hear. Syd knows the odd sort of pidgin Spanish that's still kicking around, but he doesn't know much of the older idioms, the slang uses Raul grew uo with. Raul's not planning on teaching him.   
  
"Shit," one of the gangers passing the bar slurs, "who let the zombie in?"   
  
Just like that Syd's expression goes hard, and his fingers are curled into a fist on the bar. "Say one more thing about my friend," he's spitting over his shoulder, eyes gone from crinkling at the edges to mean little chips of gunmetal. "Please. Just gimme a reason, man, I been waitin' all day."   
  
The bartender is already trying to smooth things over -- he's been cleaning glass after glass the whole time they've been there, catering to them at every second in some attempt at keeping them from shooting up the place. (Syd asked him his story, because he asks everyone for their story. Poor bastard has just been trying to keep his head down since the break-out. Syd nodded, and was polite. He was as confusing as he chose to be.) The payaso who's made the comment is tilting his jaw up and looks more like a child than a thug, perhaps gone to jail for killing the number of men that Syd kills before breakfast. Maybe that's why Syd just slaps a couple of caps down on the bar and jerks his head to Raul, walking out of the bar.   
  
Raul follows, but makes a point to clap his hand heavily on the ganger's shoulder, smiling a yellow smile from ear to ear. "Ojalá te ciega salsa en tu ojo," he says cheerily.   
  
He falls in step with Syd, who pushes the swinging doors open with both hands. "Not as harsh as I was expecting," he says under his breath when Raul is by his side.   
  
Raul shrugs, following Syd into the dusky blue light of late evening, all edged in orange and black, the streets of the town lit with fires. "Eh. He probably still shit himself."   
  
Syd laughs softly, weaving just a little on his feet. He slings an arm around Raul's neck, leaning against him as they walk, warm and heavy. "Want me to go shoot up th' place anyway?" he offers with glowing affection, the drink finally seeping into his tone as they pass by stoic lock-shouldered figures dimly illuminated by campfires, eating charred food and glaring at them as they pass. "You're my cabrón, I'll do it if you want."   
  
"The fact that that's  _sweet_  comin' from you," Raul says shaking his head in familiar disbelief, then chuckling and patting Syd's hand where it's resting against his shoulder. "Don't let those pendejos get to you. I mean, look at where they're living -- life is already having her way with them."   
  
"You make a good point."   
  
"It's what I'm here for, boss."


	2. Chapter 2

"Shit," Syd spits, one arm looped around Raul's shoulders as they walk down the main drag of Freeside. "Dónde coño están los garitos calidad?"   
  
"Those pendejos with the hair already pointed you to the Wrangler," Raul says.   
  
"Tell me you can't tell that place is the worst just based on who recommended it." Raul laughs and Syd tightens his arm, leaning in closer and hissing, " _Tell me_ ."   
  
"Alright, calm down, boss," Raul says, shoving his face away. "Don't think you're gonna find an establishment that'll cater to your refined taste in toilet booze."   
  
"Look around, muñeco, the sad sonsabitches vomiting against the walls have to have a stash somewhere."   
  
"Don't much feel like exploring those particular alleys, boss. Not until we're more familiar with this place."   
  
Syd acquiesces and then they're sitting at the bar, passing the bottle of whiskey back and forth and one thing is for sure: this place  _smells_  a hell of a lot different from the gangers' shanty bar. The stale smells of ancient cigarettes and long-dried blood are there but the air is heady with the smells of sex, old lived-in smells mingling with fresh ones and you'd think it'd be pleasant but it's not, it's foul and makes Raul's old throat feel tight. The bawdy squall of a saxophone crackling over the ancient PA is not helping matters.   
  
Syd pulls a face on his next drink and shakes his head, passing it back. "This shit ain't gonna do anything," he mutters.   
  
"Think that's the point," Raul said. "They want you to drink more of it."   
  
Syd gives a snort that's somewhere between annoyed and impressed. "Chingaros solapado," he says under his breath, digging in his pocket for more caps.   
  
  
  
Raul has learned many things about drunk Syd. He had learned that when he says  _I swear this will be funny_  it means there's gonna be a fight. He had learned that _Watch this_  meant it was time to get him the fuck out of wherever they were. And now he knew that if someone had made some kind of snide comment about the ghoul in the bar and Syd snarled  _dame la botella_  that Raul, if he obliged, was damning the bottle to a short, glorious life before Syd smashed it against the bar and dared the poor bastard to repeat himself.   
  
He's well into drunk by now, of course, and his hand is bleeding fierce from where a chunk of glass slipped between his palm and his grip on the neck of the bottleknife. The wound is deep and long and Raul keeps trying to get a decent look at it but Syd just pushes him away, laughs it off, pulls out a stained old bandana and wraps it around the open cut. "Problem solved, papi," Syd grins, and he has this  _way_  about him when he's drunk, all swagger and embers, devilish grin that makes strangers feel like they're in on a grand secret and friends feel like they're the only person in the room.   
  
They're not thrown out, since  _technically_  the guy with the smart mouth started it, and Raul is trying to maneuver Syd up the stairs, and Syd's got his arm around Raul's heck and is laughing softly to himself with every step, being bodily dragged to a place where he can be more horizontal.

Raul tugs Syd's boots from his feet, and Syd's sitting up in the bed, all ungainly movements and he reaches out and he grasps on Raul's coveralls, gripping on the neckcatch and trying to tug him down. Raul swats his hands away, and Syd just moves them along his shoulders, still trying to pull him into bed. "Soy cachondo, cabrón, venir aqui."   
  
"No means no, pendejo, stop it," and Raul grabs Syd's wrists and pulls them off of his body with a firmer grip than he normally would. He's just not in the mood to be teased like this tonight. It's getting harder to take every time. An old man is still a man.   
  
Syd falls back into the bed and is grinning up at him through heavy eyelids, absurdly thick eyelashes and all that spark drowned into a heady warm glow. "Cuando estoy contigo siento tanto bien," he says around his grin, premature crinkling around his eyes, and it cuts Raul to the quick how he never sounds this sincere when he's sober. "Yo quiero nos enamorarse y les hacen nos odian."   
  
Syd is hazy and warm and the last time he was like this he declared that he was going to make love to a pile of Fancy Lad Snack Cakes and make Colonel Moore watch, so Raul just shakes his head and pats a rough hand against his chest. "Solamente quiero dormir siempre," he says.   
  
Syd just keeps smiling, eyes falling closed. "Quédate conmigo. Por favor."   
  
"Since you asked so politely," Raul obliges. "Also because there's one bed."   
  
"I'm ignorin' that last comment," Syd mumbles, and Raul laughs. He shucks off his boots and crawls into the bed, and Syd's getting handsy again.   
  
"Kid," Raul says warningly.   
  
"I know," Syd says, sleep tinging his tone. "No funny business, relax. I'll behave."   
  
Raul tries to relax, but even when the smell of fresh blood is mingled with that singular sour stench of the Wrangler and tre resultant odor is valiantly trying to overtake Raul's senses, Syd's warm next to him, and his smell,  _his_  smell, is still all Raul can focus on.   
  
"Not that I wanna," Syd adds, and Raul snorts and rolls onto his side, facing the wall. Syd situates himself behind him, looping an arm around his waist. "You think I'm foolin' but I ain't."    
  
"I think you're  _drunk_ , guapo. Whatever  _you_  think this is, guapo, sleep it off."   
  
He can feel Syd's breath gusting hot against the back of his head and Syd says, "Quiero ser contigo."   
  
"Tú es. Dormir."   
  
Syd's palm is flat on his chest and Syd moves behind him, pressing closer against his back. "Voy a hacer su cuerpo herido para me." He says it like a promise.   
  
"Go to sleep, cabrón."   
  
"Quiero atesoro huevos tu."   
  
"Boss, at this point, I will pay you actual money to stop talking."   
  
A sleepy laugh erupts behind him and Syd slings his arm off of Raul's waist, and he rolls over in fitful bursts of action that make the bed shake, until they're back-to-back. "Tú lo es solamente," Syd breathes, voice heavy with sleep. "No hay igual."   
  
"You're a chatty drunk," Raul says, and Syd chuckles one more time before drifting off.   
  
  
  
Syd winces when he tugs on his jacket and Raul reaches for his hand. Syd pulls it back with a halfhearted snarl and Raul reaches for it again and catches it, sees how it looks bad and smells worse. "Unless you want your hand to look like my face," he says, "we're goin' to that medical fort."   
  
"I like yer face," Syd grumbles, but he winces again when Raul starts gently kneading at the flesh of his palm around the cut with his thumbs. Some kind of viscous yellowish fluid leaks out from the cracked and congealing gash and Raul doesn't wait for Syd to tug on his boots, he just bends down and grabs them with one hand and pulls on Syd's wrist with the other, dragging him out the door and ignoring his increasingly vulgar protests.

The hand's gonna be fine, the doctor's telling Syd as he treats it, the courier shifting on the cot like an anxious child. "But it's a good thing you came here. Why were you walking around with a wound like this?"   
  
"Wasn't," Syd says. "Was sleepin' with it."   
  
Dr. Gannon laughs even though Syd wasn't joking and Raul suddenly doesn't like the way the doctor is looking at him.   
  
Syd keeps moving restlessly in place, can't keep his eyes from roaming and barely keeping his hand still to be patched up. The doctor's laying it on pretty thick. Syd smiles at one particularly flattering comment on his general ruggedness and Raul decides the tent is too crowded. He's not delusional, but that doesn't mean he has to watch.   
  
Syd comes out of the tent looking surly, jerks his head as he's leaving and Raul falls in step. "Asshole says I can't 'operate a firearm' for two weeks. Glass near severed somethin' that's gonna take a while to heal."   
  
Raul snorts and mutters under his breath,  _bet he'd let you operate his firearm_ , and he thinks Syd will be too preoccupied with the blood roaring in his ears over that ultimatum from the doc but he stops stalking, turns back and looks at Raul with his eyebrows shot up to his hair line and he laughs, and sidles up to him and slips his arms around Raul's shoulders. "You wanna go back in there and punch him? Mark yer territory?"   
  
"Stop it," Raul says, trying to push Syd's arms off him with a casual wave of his hand, but Syd's just leaning closer, grinning.   
  
Someone groans loudly from across the street, and they're supposed to hear. Raul tries to shove the courier off of him, and Syd just laughs, tilts his head up and looks at Raul. "Todos es solamente celoso," he murmurs, the glint of naked affection in his eyes making Raul more than a little nervous.   
  
Syd pulls off him and tosses a rude gesture towards the groaner, and Raul feels like he should say something but Syd's already heading for the North gate. "Let's get outta this zoo."


End file.
